Ice cream is a product enjoyed by many consumers. It is purchased by consumers in the ready to eat form as ice cream cones and ice cream sundaes at restaurants and specialty stores. It is also purchased by consumers in multiple serving containers. These multiple serving containers come in several sizes and shapes. Two common multiple serving containers are half gallon boxes (sometimes referred to as “bricks”) and half gallon round tubs (sometimes referred to as “rounds”). Bricks and tubs or rounds are made from paper, cardboard, plastic, and composites of these materials, such as plastic coated paper. This invention is specifically directed to multiple serving containers for ice cream to be sold to consumers and it will be described with reference primarily to the half gallon size although it is applicable to other multiple serving consumer packages such as pint, quart, five quart, and three gallon size. Standard half gallon bricks are five inches by seven inches by three and one-half inches deep.
Ice cream containers perform several functions. Some of these functions are performed at different times in the life of the container and described below sequentially with reference to the ice cream manufacturing and distribution process.
Conventionally, ice cream is manufactured by mixing liquid ingredients in a mixing tank and feeding the mixed ingredients into a cooling unit where the mixed ingredients are reduced in temperature to about 20° F. The mixed ingredients become significantly more viscous but will still flow. If the flavor being manufactured includes solid items, these solid items, such as cookie parts, are mixed into the flowing material at this point. This chilled and fully mixed material is fed to a package filling machine which feeds the material into the ice cream package. The ice cream package is closed and shrink wrapped to other packages for more convenient handling. The packaged ice cream is then placed in a hardening area for several hours where its temperature is reduced to zero or below for hardening. The packaged, finished ice cream is ready to be stored or shipped. The packages perform several functions in this process.
The package carries information about the product it contains. The ice cream package is preprinted. It contains product ingredient information, the flavor, the size, the brand name and graphics intended to persuade purchasers to buy this particular container of ice cream. Packaging is specific to each flavor of ice cream. Packaging is also specific to different customers. Thus, a particular supermarket chain will have a requirement for one package bearing its store brand name while a different market chain will offer a similar or identical product in a different package. Packages generally take about ten to twelve weeks to create, order and print. Thus, producing product for each chain requires careful planning and much lead time.
The package also performs the function of receiving the ice cream as it is measured and divided into a consumer product. The package acts as a receptacle in the metering process.
The package acts as a container for the ice cream in processing, that is, in hardening of the ice cream into a finished ice cream product. The package has an impact on the hardening process.
The inventory of finished ice cream products is kept at low temperature, around −10° F. to −20° F. The finished inventory is usually very large as a finished inventory of each flavor desired by each customer in each package type required by the customer is often kept on hand. Keeping up such a large inventory is expensive. While conventional wisdom requires a large inventory to meet customer needs, it does not improve the product. Ice cream does not improve with age.
When a retailer requires delivery, the flavors required in the packages required are selected from finished inventory, assembled on pallets and shipped. The packaged ice cream is received at supermarkets and the like where it is placed in freezer display cases. The freezer display cases are conventional and are either upright type cases or open chest type freezers. Upright cases in which the packages are displayed on shelves in the freezer extending from just above the floor to above eye height are popular. Alternatively, the ice cream is kept in open chest type freezers in which the ice cream is stacked within a freezer compartment from just above floor level to about waist level. In the freezer, the ice cream package performs the function of displaying required product information including size, flavor, brand name, and the like. The package also carries a graphical display, such as a picture of the product, designed to please the consumer. The shape, size and overall appearance of the package has an impact on the consumer and helps the consumer to reach a conclusion on the perceived desirability of the product and whether to purchase it or not. Thus, the package performs an important marketing function. Typically, a retailer can achieve a “pack out” (a freezer loading) of about 120 units with round tub packages. A retailer can obtain a pack out of about 240 units with brick packages.
After purchase, the ice cream is transported by the consumer to the home and stored in the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. The package often resides in the consumer's freezer compartment for at least several days as a half gallon of ice cream contains several servings. Each serving of ice cream is removed from the container and the container is placed back in the freezer to store the remaining portions for later consumption.
The above described process starts with liquid ingredients or raw materials, solid raw materials and packages. Most of the liquid raw materials are common to all flavors and brands of ice cream which an ice cream manufacturer is selling. Therefore, the liquid ingredients inventory can be reasonably managed. The packages, however, are a different question. Packaging is expensive. Half gallon cardboard packaging printed and delivered to the ice cream plant costs about 12¢ to 15¢ per unit when purchased in the millions. Round packages cost 28¢ to 30¢ per unit when purchased in the millions. The manufacturer must have packaging for each brand and flavor his or her other customers' desire. He or she must purchase packages in large quantities to obtain the best price. If a particular retailer carries three quality levels of ice cream, each with ten brands, 30 different packages for each size desired are required. The cost of holding inventory of so many different packages is high.
If a manufacturer is making a particular flavor on a day, it may wish to use ice cream packages for multiple customers demanding their own packages. This requires changeovers resulting in wasted product and/or wasted time while the package feeds to the packaging line are changed.
Conventional packaging lines are package specific. Thus one packaging line will fill half gallon cardboard containers only. A separate packaging line has to be set up if the manufacturer is also producing ice cream for packaging in half gallon plastic tubs. Plastic tubs must also be kept on hand in large quantities for each brand and flavor produced. This is because, like the cardboard bricks, the tubs have product information, trademarks and the like printed directly on the tubs. The tubs are also expensive, about 28¢ to 30¢ cents per unit for printed tubs delivered to the ice cream factory in large quantity.
Hardening of the ice cream in the conventional process takes several hours and is capital intensive. One method of hardening the packaged ice cream is called a roller bed process. The ice cream packages are placed on a roller type conveyor in a very cold room where cold air is circulated by blowers. The ice cream containers are held in this very cold room for 10-12 hours where hardening occurs. Another hardening system is available from Freestech International, Ltd., P.O. Box 1657, Lancaster, Pa. and is known as the Tri-Tray system. It provides moving trays upon which the ice cream is disposed. The trays move within the cold room and cold air is blown around the ice cream while it moves on these trays. This movement results in decreased hardening time, but several hours are still required to harden the ice cream to appropriate finished temperatures. In both of the above described hardening methods, hardening is accomplished by heat exchange through cold moving air interacting with the package. Another method of hardening ice cream is with a contact plate hardener. In a contact plate hardener, coolant is passed through aluminum plates reducing their temperature to a very low level. Packages of ice cream are fed into the contact plate freezer. Plates contact the lower and upper surfaces of the packages while heat is extracted from the ice cream into the chilled aluminum plate. Plate freezers are efficient when used with packages having flat tops and bottoms and which can be packed adjacent one another with side walls in direct contact. Contact plate freezers therefore are usable with brick packages but are not well suited to tubs. With one half gallon cardboard bricks of the normal three and one-half inch height, the contact plate freezer typically requires about 1½ to 2 hours of residence time for hardening ice cream.
The above described hardening processes require large capital expenditures. Typically, an ice cream manufacturing plant will spend several million dollars on a Tri-Tray hardening line. Contact plate freezers cost about a million and a half dollars and are limited to a single thickness. Thus, several hardeners will typically be required.
Because retail stores demand such variety of flavors and packages for those flavors, a large inventory must be kept on hand and kept at the hardened temperature, about −20° F. One ice cream producer has built a high rise automated cold storage facility 62 feet high and 250 feet long to store inventory of over 400 different ice cream packaged products (see March 1989 issue of Dairy Field). Capital costs and operating costs for such automated material handling and cold storage facilities are large.
Packaging also has an impact on how ice cream is sold at the retail store. At the retail store, the packages are stored and displayed in freezers. One of the most popular and useful freezers is a vertical freezer in which ice cream is displayed on shelves starting near the floor and rising to above eye level. This provides a visual display in which a large number of packages can be seen by the consumer and easily removed from the freezer for purchase. Typically, because of shelf spacing and access needs, half gallon bricks are displayed with two half gallon packages stacked one on top of another on a shelf The shelf must be spaced vertically sufficiently for the consumer to reach in and select a package even after the first few rows have been taken. Shelves cannot extend too low or too high or consumers will not reach them. These limitations result in a typical display being four containers wide and five shelves high for a total of twenty visible slots each slot containing two half gallon bricks one stacked on top of the other. Each of the 20 slots is filled with several pairs, one behind the other. A maximum of 20 flavors is therefore displayable. This also limits the area of a package visible to a consumer. If the consumer can only see a single side of the package as it is displayed in the freezer compartment, the remaining sides of the package are lost as marketing tools. Thus, the size of one side is the size of the primary marketing surface.
Packaging also has an impact on consumer enjoyment of ice cream. In the home, conventional brick type ice cream packages are normally stored in the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. The brick opens from the top or side and most consumers will store this package in only one orientation, with the top on top. This takes up a significant amount of volume in the freezer. Moreover, once the package is opened there will be voids within the package and it becomes difficult to stack other items on top of the ice cream package. Space is wasted within the consumer's refrigerator freezer compartment. Most consumers have only limited freezer compartment space and a great demand for this space.
An additional problem with the half gallon brick ice cream container is that it is relatively unfriendly to consumers when serving ice cream. This is particularly evident when one is trying to scoop out the last serving of an ice cream container. The corners of the brick are 90° angles and very difficult to properly empty. The container is relatively tall. This often results in one getting ice cream on one's sleeve when one is removing ice cream from the container. The container also flops around when one is trying to get ice cream out of it aggravating the problem. When the container is empty, it is trash and must be disposed of. Putting it straight in the garbage is often messy as there is a residue of ice cream in the package which may leak in an unintended manner. Rinsing out the ice cream container is also difficult as it is flexible, difficult to handle and contains overlapping surfaces which often hold unsuspected liquid.
Some ice cream is sold in half gallon paper or plastic tubs. These tubs have a somewhat flat bottom, a gently tapering conical side wall and a somewhat flat top closed by a flanged rib. These tops can be securely closed after being opened by a consumer. However, the tub shape is very inefficient in the freezer. Tubs stacked adjacent to one another have significant volumes of air between adjacent tubs. This is true in the consumer's freezer, the retailer's freezer and the manufacturer's hardening process. Significantly more space is required for an inventory of tubs when compared to an inventory of similar count in bricks. The pack out for a given freezer using tubs is significantly less than the pack out achievable for bricks. Tubs are not efficiently processed in a contact plate freezer. Tubs are expensive and expensive to print upon.
Retailers now demand a variety of ice cream products including a variety of flavors and a variety of labels for each flavor. Thus, retailers will offer branded products and private label products in the same package size and same flavors but with different packaging. Different retailers require different packages. The lead time for appropriation of a package is long. For instance, 10 to 12 weeks is the normal lead time from finished layout to receipt of a supply of printed boxes for brick type half gallon containers. Because of this long lead time and the wide variety of packages required, ice cream manufacturers must keep a large inventory of finished packages on hand. This is expensive as it ties up capital. It is also wasteful as packaging requirements change and old inventory must be scrapped. Because the lead time is long, retailers cannot take advantage of changing consumer tastes or special events. A retailer must wait at least 10 to 12 weeks if he or she decides that a new flavor or package graphics is desired by consumers. Even a minor change in a package requires preparation of new printing plates at a cost of about $1,000 to $2,000.
Manufacturers have been maintaining large inventories of finished products in cold storage warehouses. This is because of the wide variety of flavors and packages required by retailers in a single shipment and the long processing time required in the conventional ice cream manufacturing process. Including hardening, processing from liquid ingredients to finished hardened product takes from about 1½ to about 12 hours. As described above, ice cream manufacturers have been addressing this problem of a large and varied inventory by building large, automated finished product warehouses.
Retailers have also been limited by current ice cream manufacturing techniques. The display of the ice cream packages in vertical freezer cases is awkward. One displays only one side of the half gallon brick. The largest panel, the top, measures five inches by seven inches. This limits the merchandising display available on the product. Moreover, sometimes bricks are stacked with the top on top and the top of the brick is not visible to the consumer. The retailer's problems are not addressed by the round tub. While round tubs are sometimes associated with premium brands of ice cream, the display properties are not good. If the tubs are stood upright in vertical freezers, the surface presented to the consumers is curved. This greatly reduces its usability. Moreover, proper orientation of the tubs in the freezer is not always achieved. The display panel desired may be facing the back of the freezer rather than the front. The top of the tub is not visible in vertical display cases and, if the tub is displayed on its side to make the top visible, the tub is likely to roll around. in a chest type freezer, only the top of the tub is visible. The tub is also very inefficient in volume utilization. Tubs, when stored next to one another, always include significant amounts of air space between adjacent tubs.
Thus, the retailer is provided with packages which do not present good merchandising panels when stored in a vertical freezer and which do not facilitate maximum use the volume of a freezer. As freezer space is very expensive at retail, this is a considerable loss.
The consumer too is limited by current ice cream manufacturing and packaging techniques. Paper or cardboard half gallon bricks are difficult to use and store and often result in the soiling of one's clothing when dispensing ice cream. The cartons are difficult to dispose of neatly and are difficult to store in the freezer. Half gallon tubs are even more difficult to store in the freezer, are deep and therefor just as likely to soil clothing. Plastic tubs also add expense to the ice cream product which, ultimately, the consumer pays. These packages, even the plastic tubs, do not reseal well and are not optimal for reuse by the consumer.
In addition to the above difficulties caused by the use of pre-printed ice cream containers and lengthy hardening methods, manufacturers have heretofore struggled with the economic burdens of maintaining extensive and costly pre-precessing equipment and inventory associated with the pre-hardening manufacturing process. Previously, liquid raw materials were added to a mixing tank, then mixed and subsequently cooled. Flavoring was typically added prior to mixing. The cooled materials were then pumped to a filler for insertion into a pre-printed container. Optional solid ingredients could be added to the mixture before the filler, such as nuts, cookies, etc. In this type of process or system, a single assembly line was dedicated to producing batches of a single flavor of ice cream. Apart from the aforementioned problems arising from the use of pre-printed ice cream containers, changeover of the prior systems from one flavor to another was difficult and expensive due to the pre-hardening process configuration itself. Where the ice cream flavoring was added to the mixing tank before cooling, a changeover from chocolate to strawberry required that the entire system from the mixing tank to the filler be first emptied of chocolate. To reduce wasted ice cream and reduce down time between batches of different flavors, larger batches of a given flavor have been preferred. In the situation where changeover of the pre-hardening ice cream manufacturing process was longer than changing the supply of pre-printed containers, all the required chocolate would be preferably manufactured at once with intervening downtime only for container changes, and/or to optionally activate or deactivate the addition of solid ingredients. Larger batch sizes, however, require more sophisticated production scheduling in order to ensure that all current orders for a given flavor are run sequentially. In addition, where such large volume batches are employed, the lead time from customer order placement to shipment will generally increase. Where a single customer places an order for multiple flavors, as is typical of retail grocers, the required chocolate may be ready for shipment far in advance of the other ordered flavors. The total time to fill the entire order may thus be substantially longer than would otherwise be the case, were smaller batch sizes used, or were partial shipments used. Most customers do not like partial shipments because of increased accounting and other overhead expenses. Moreover, some customers will not accept partial deliveries, in which case the manufacturer must store the partial orders awaiting completion of the last flavor or type required to fill a given order. From a customer point of view, therefore, the use of large batch sizes by the ice cream manufacturer results in an aggregate increase in delivery time, or an increase in the number of partial shipments, or both, without any improvement in the quality of the ice cream.
The manufacturer has heretofore been forced to minimize changeover and setup time at the expense of longer delivery times and increased short term storage capacity, or vice versa. No optimal balance is truly achievable in this situation absent a manufacturing process or system which reduces the time required to change from production of one flavor or variation of ice cream product to another according to customer order information. The same problem of reducing production changeover time applies not only to ice cream flavors, but also to ingredients added to the ice cream, such as chocolate, candy, nuts, cookies, marshmallow, fruit, spices, brownies, pastry, and the like.
Also burdensome from a manufacturing/production control perspective is the use of multiple layer pre-filled food, such as cake or crumble, or graham crackers, which are commonly added to a bottom layer of an ice cream container prior to filling with ice cream. Indeed, such dessert treats are fast becoming popular for special occasions such as birthdays, etc. Desserts in this variety include multiple pre-fill layers, for example, with cake on the bottom, a caramel layer above the cake, chocolate in another layer, and including ice cream with nuts on a top layer. Such layers can include many foods such as caramel, fudge, peanut butter, chocolate, fruit products, cookie dough, sherbet, spices, marshmallow, and the like. As with simply changing the flavor of ice cream in an assembly line or manufacturing system, changing or varying pre-filled layers of such non-ice cream foods can create further changeover delays and downtime which can potentially be greater than those relating to changeover of pre-printed packages or containers. A system and process are therefore desirable which reduce or eliminate downtime in an ice cream manufacturing facility related to different flavors, solid ingredients, number and composition of different layers of food and/or ice cream, and printing or labeling appearing on the product container and/or lid.
Prior ice cream manufacturing and packaging processes and systems also require oversight and management of production, scheduling, planning, and control. As mentioned above, production batches or runs may be scheduled based solely on customer order information received in customer purchase orders. In this case, an order for a certain flavor, mixture, etc. of ice cream product may be received just after a batch of that particular product has been completed for shipment elsewhere. As a result, the order will suffer extended completion time because the economics of large batch processing dictate that another batch of the same product will not occur again for some time. The random nature of the composition and timing of customer order information in prior systems results in reduced ability of the manufacturer to consistently and accurately provide delivery date promises. Variance or inaccuracy in delivery schedules forces the customer to order fisher in advance, while providing additional storage space and refrigerated inventory facilities for any orders received early, just to ensure minimum on-hand quantities of certain products on a daily basis. Trending, stochastics, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and other mathematical or statistical modeling or predicting techniques have been employed by manufacturers in setting production schedules, and also by customers in placing purchase orders. Typically, a manufacturer will use some sort of modeling of customer buying trends, possibly including seasonal adjustments, to supplement the raw order data in deciding batch scheduling. Under-production tends to decrease batch sizes with the resulting increase in downtime and changeover delays, whereas over-production tends to increase inventory carrying costs. Furthermore, if inventory is kept on-hand at the manufacturer in order to reduce the time from order to shipment, the average age of the product increases, as does the cost due to the inventory overhead. The product age is important in the ice cream business where shelf-life information is considered by the ultimate consumer. Moreover, inventory maintenance problems have been multiplied and exacerbated in recent years by the increased number of ice cream flavors and other product variations desired by consumers. This will be worsened further as the variations in solid ingredients and pre-filled food layers increase. In order to reduce inventory costs, changeover costs, and batch change downtime, and ensure prompt delivery, it is desirable to provide a process and system for manufacturing ice cream products according to customer order information which provides production controls with information from customer databases, cash registers, and/or mathematical requirements predicting models for use in production planning.